West End star Sheridan Smith plays Julie Bushby in BBC drama The Moorside

What happened to Shannon Matthews?

Shannon Matthews disappeared on her way home from a swimming lesson at Westmoor Primary School, Dewsbury, in 2008, in a case that shocked the nation.

Hundreds of neighbours joined the search which cost West Yorkshire Police £3.2million and lasted 24 days.

The nine-year-old was found tethered and drugged inside the base of a double bed at relative Michael Donovan’s grotty flat almost a month after she disappeared.

Karen Matthews, Shannon’s mum, was going out with Donovan’s nephew Craig Meehan at the time – and the pair had devised the elaborate plot in a bid to claim the £50,000 reward money for finding Shannon.

They had planned to release the schoolgirl, ‘discover her’ then take her to a police station and claim the reward before splitting.

Meehan, who had nothing to do with Shannon’s abduction, was jailed for 20 weeks after unrelated child sex abuse material was discovered on his computer.

Shannon was taken off Karen and placed in the care of her local authority after the trial.

Karen, the mother of Shannon Matthews, pictured holding her daughter's favourite teddy bear as she made an emotional appeal for her safe return

Who is Julie Bushby?

Julie Bushby organised the hunt for missing Shannon Matthews in 2003. She was the good friend and neighbour of Karen, as well as being the chair of the Moorside residents and tenants association that helped trace Shannon.

Efforts included marches, personal searches, and door-to-door enquiries - which were eventually revealed to be pointless.

Julie continued to visit Karen in prison once a month for four years as she hoped to discover the truth about what happened.

Julie told This Morning hosts Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield: "I felt sorry for her then, and I still feel sorry for her now.

"I wanted answers, she kept saying that other people were involved but I wanted to know the truth, why, what."

Phillip asked if she ever found out the truth and she said "no".

Julie, now 46, still lives in Dewsbury, saying the estate will always be home to her.

“It’s always felt safe to me, the community always rallies around,” she said.

Mum Karen Matthews was jailed for the kidnap and false imprisonment of her daughter Shannon

Why does she want the case re-opened?

Julie wants to “scrutinise” the police statements herself and she says there could be something in there she will spot, that the police did not at the time.

She said: “What I’d love to do is get hold of everybody’s statements. That’s what I’d love to do, and sit there and scrutinise them.

“There are qualified coppers, and they’ve probably all scrutinised these statements, but there’ll be something that I see that they don’t see, but the chances of that happening are…uh-uh.”

She also said she would like to hear from Shannon, adding: “I’d just like it if she got in contact, not with me personally, just with the kids that she went to school with, because 90 per cent of them are still in that area.

“And it’d be just nice if she just… even if she just turned up and went hi, because still to this day, them kids don’t know whether she’s dead or alive, because they’ve never seen her.”

She added that if Karen were to get in touch she “would still want answers off of her” but said “life’s too short to hold grudges for the rest of your life”.

Julie has disputed the theory that Karen devised the elaborate plot in a bid to claim the £50,000 reward money for finding Shannon - and has said Karen was trying to get away from Craig.

She told the Radio Times that the key to understanding Karen is she is "a child in an adult's body".

Julie describes the mum as "stupid, not evil" and is convinced that her motive was not for the money.

Even after Karen was found guilty and sent to prison, Julie was the one person to visit her.

She says she did so as although she wanted answers, Karen was "a mate" and because Julie felt she "must be so lonely".

How has the case been covered by Channel 5?

In February Channel 5 aired Shannon Matthews: What Happened Next which explored the fake kidnapping plot and aired new views from Julie who believes 'others had to be involved’ and has called for the case to be re-opened.

The show examined the now infamous case which saw Shannon ‘kidnapped’ by her own mum and then reported missing.

According to the documentary, people who knew the disgraced mum will claim she was acting under instruction from somebody else.